I've spent roughly the last decade being the poster child of liberated sexuality. I've been advocating for exploring non-normative ways of relating for about as long as I've been of legal drinking age, because I think the default box we get for our relationships (the typical heteronormative relationship escalator marriage-oriented checklist) is quite obviously broken judging by the success rate of today's relationships.
The trouble is, it turns out that there's a huge fireswamp of pitfalls outside the default relationship box too. And sometimes they're even harder to call out, because like newly minted atheists coming out of repressive Churchianity backgrounds, we so want to be right -- we so want to be on the correct side of a black-and-white binary where we are free and the unawakened are trapped, and unfortunately that desire to be right blinds us from a lot of the pain that happens, because facing it means we might be wrong about the very thing that freed us. It's amazing how much we as humans, even those of us who brand ourselves as free thinkers, rely on the worship of ideologies for security.
I've spent the last six months thinking about the ways that things like non-monogamy and BDSM are not working for me, and it's been some of the most difficult yet liberating contemplation I've ever done. I absolutely intend at some point in the future to write a lengthy post about that process, about how I had to let go of everything I held as my identity in order to attempt a breakthrough to the next level, but for now let's just say that Sri Krishna Menon once said, "That which a man considers his virtue can arrest his development far more than that which he considers his faults," and man, that's real.
I've spent the past few days talking a little bit about this on social media, and I've gotten both backlash as well as a few people saying "thank fuck someone finally said this." Over the summer I came out in a Facebook post as not-polyamorous, which is a very strange coming out to have to do. I named seven ways in which polyamory was not only not working for me, but actually hurting me and slowly eroding my self-esteem. It ended up getting shared out in my community over 140 times, so clearly it resonated with some folks.
I'm not saying polyamory and BDSM are unhealthy, unnatural, or inadvisable. I'm just noting that they're not the cure-all that we often like to think they are, and that their constructs, great on paper (like communism), too often hold the power to sanction abuse disguised as lifestyle guidelines. And because of those sanctions, nobody around notices the abuse. Instead they respond with aphorisms like "trust the guidance of your Dominant in loving submission!" or "jealousy is just an opportunity for deeper connection!" and I just fucking can't, you guys, I fucking can't with this anymore. Your emperor is naked.
Here's a thing I've noticed about myself, in a summary that is far too brief to do justice to what I unpacked but which will have to suffice for now: I grew up with abuse. As a coping mechanism, I learned to dissociate from the abuse, because by mentally leaving the abusive situation as it was happening I was able to survive it. Using dissociation as a coping mechanism meant that I created a disconnect in the dialogue between me and my body, thereby creating an inability to tell when my body was or was not enjoying something. I retreated into the safety of my logical brain, which was able to analyze and discern a best course of action -- or what would have been a best course of action, had it not completely disregarded the fact that my body was, unbeknownst to me, storing all the trauma I was putting it through. (I just ordered The Body Keeps the Score and it's on my reading list now as I continue to attempt undoing this crap.) What this meant was that I suffered a great deal of assaults and boundary crossings because it didn't feel logical to make a fuss about them, nor even, in some cases, to remove myself from the situation. I couldn't hear my body anyway, so it didn't feel like it mattered.
Here is what I did know to be true: I wanted to be loved. I desperately, desperately wanted to be loved, and I wanted to be protected, because growing up in an abusive household while watching movies like The Princess Bride and Labyrinth will give you some serious ideas about what a relationship is supposed to offer you. Most of all, I wanted not to be abandoned, and in order to not be abandoned (I inferred unconsciously), I had to be, above all, desirable. Because only women like Robin Wright and Jennifer Connelly were worthy of rescue.
When I found BDSM -- and in it, submission -- it was a relief in ways I could not describe, because suddenly all my desires and fantasies made sense. I wanted to surrender to a man who would take responsibility for me, who was capable of protecting me. I internalized this as identity: I feel this way, therefore I am a submissive. Throughout the years, I heard counterarguments of all kinds from people saying, "Are you sure you're not just internalizing toxic patriarchal norms?" which is just a hair away from saying "ugh how can you be submissive and still be a feminist," so naturally I rejected them (especially since they were mostly from people who did not look like me and clearly did not hold the same values), and for the most part I still do. What nobody thought to ask me, however, was "Are you sure that your submission is not just a plea-bargain for love and protection from someone you feel is more capable of keeping you, as a woman, safe from the evils of a patriarchal world?"
And so I gave myself, time and again, to men who I perceived as more powerful than me, and I happily submitted to their desires so they wouldn't reject me, because nothing felt better than feeling safe. I loved the structure of D/s because of the clear directive it provided me: I was given explicit instructions on how to live my life, which meant that a) as long as I followed those instructions I would continue to be kept safe, and b) I didn't actually have to check in with my body and decide what I wanted, which, after so many years of dissociation, was something I was almost entirely unable to do anyway. (Side note, my most recent ex once praised me for being someone who actually meant it when I said "Oh I don't know, you choose," as opposed to, I guess, his other friends who would say that and then secretly resent him for choosing? Either way, pretty fucked up in all regards.) On paper (communism!), this should have been the best arrangement ever. In practice, I was far more often endangered, abused, and abandoned without warning by the men with whom I entrusted myself.
When I discovered polyamory, it made sense to me for three reasons: 1) monogamy was proving ineffective by nearly all counts, 2) allowing my partner to fuck other women could only mean that I was even more desirable than before because seriously what man doesn't want the sexual benefits of a relationship and the sexual freedom of bachelorhood, and 3) I was far less likely to be abandoned because "cheating" was, in most instances, a non-issue -- a partner could just "cheat" and then come back to me, no big deal. (Secret, you guys? I have never had a guy cheat on me and try to come back, and I actually count this as a point of shame. The guys who wanted another woman have just left me. I secretly envy women whose partners cheat on them and then come back and ask for reconciliation, because at least they're still wanted.) If what I wanted most in my relationships was not to be abandoned, then it stood to reason that I should probably give my partner plenty of ways to get his needs met without having to abandon me.
Do you see a theme here? Essentially, I chose kink and poly -- two sexually marginalized identities that are wholly defensible in the realm of identity politics -- as a sanctioned way of completely ignoring my own needs in a relationship in exchange for the one blazing, howling, irrepressible need I could not ignore: don't fucking leave me.
And anyone who came remotely close to calling me out on that (though nobody did, if we're being honest, if I recall correctly it was all just bullshit heteronormative shaming, or at least it seemed that way at the time) got a hearty "Don't squick my squee!" from me, because alternative sexualities get judged so much as it is that that just becomes a knee-jerk response. We're so used to judgment that we confuse it with examination.
I'm probably not exactly monogamous and vanilla either, to be fair. I'm still doing the work to uncover what my needs actually are, because as much as I wanted to just be accepted the way I was, perfect in my imperfection, worthy in my unworthiness, I've realized that if you try to pretend you have no needs you'll keep attracting people who agree with you. Trust me you guys, nobody wanted me to be able to just keep on ignoring my needs and embracing blind surrender more than I did. Tuning into my body and finding out what it wants has been incredibly painful; it has meant processing quite literally a lifetime of things it didn't want, which has had me laid up in bed far more often than I think a productive person ought to be these past six months. But it can't work any other way, because I'm pretty sure I maxed out my capacity to be pleasing. In order to attract a partner who believes my needs matter, I have to believe my needs matter. And in order to believe my needs matter, I need to figure out what they are. Pretty fucked up how in order to love someone else I actually have to love myself first, right??
This week I've seen a lot of stuff on Facebook about polyamory and how letting go of jealousy and giving a man his freedom just deepens our connection and makes him love us more, and I'm here to tell you guys, that's just not always true. Sometimes it is; sometimes you find an amazing partner who puts your needs first and simply understands that sex with other people doesn't need to be the threat to your love for each other that heteronormative society thinks it is. But sometimes your partner goes off to New York and breaks off your relationship over an email because he just met someone and now everything's different. Sometimes you're just dating a douchebag who doesn't give a shit about your feelings, and reframes your asking for your emotions to be prioritized as your "not doing poly right." Because it's easier for them to blame you for not being a poly paragon than it is for them to admit they're treating you like shit.
Here is a need I have been fighting to have for years now: My feelings need to matter. If something feels bad, I need a partner to care about that. I don't need it to be an ultimatum, and I don't need my feelings to dictate every law of a relationship (seriously how often do women's emotions get unfairly painted as tyrannical as it is?), but I need a partner to actively want me to not be hurt. When I'm in love with someone and I feel them hurting, it tears me apart like it was myself, worse than myself since I can't fucking feel my own pain anyway, and I'll go to the ends of the earth to stop it. I want this returned to me. I want a lover who, when I'm in pain, wants my pain to stop. Instead what we end up getting in the poly community is that "Well nobody can MAKE you feel ANYTHING" bullshit, which is exactly the rhetoric my ex used to justify abusing me. Fuck that. If your choices are constantly putting me in pain and you don't see a problem with that, then you're the asshole, not me.
I invite you too to examine whether you've painted yourself into a corner of identity politics that nobody will be able to rescue you from because it feels too much like sex-shaming. Are you submissive because you fear your needs are too embarrassing, too much? Are you dominant because you fear being called out when you're wrong, because you fear the uncertainty of what might happen if you're not in control? Are you poly because you want to take care of multiple people, or are you poly because you don't want to be accountable to anyone?
Unfortunately, having a cool sexual identity is not actually a substitute for doing work on yourself. There's just as many pitfalls outside the box as in it, lovers, and not nearly enough of us creating a map.
Excellent insights. What a healthy post.
Posted by: nobody | 12/27/2016 at 08:14 PM
I love this article. It has articulated so many feelings I've been having lately and having a hard time saying because of all the reasons of politics and sex-shaming you've mentioned. Ive also written a similar-ish article on the topic I'd love to share but no pressure to read: http://www.tynanrhea.com/single-post/2016/12/27/what-if-we-thought-about-sex-positivity-as-a-spectrum - I hope we can connect some time!
Posted by: Tynan Rhea | 12/29/2016 at 11:27 AM
Thanks for writing this, Arden. That pointed me to some things that I need to be careful about.
Posted by: Jasmin | 12/29/2016 at 06:46 PM
It was far more dangerous for me to be in a vanilla relationship and not know what my needs were than to be in a loose D/s relationship in which I acknowledge that I want someone else to help structure a lot of things I haven't figured out yet. Is the latter ideal? Not especially.
Over a year in to a much healthier dynamic, I have learned that when I do finally figure something out he honors that shift. I think for us poly has been a minor part of an effort to maintain autonomy, wherein we do not restrict the kinds of connections possible, the kinds of change that allow for growth. This type of trust has made life richer in other areas of life far more than it has populated our beds with other lovers.
Much of the pain in my broken relationships seemed to stem from a clinging to the other as a source (of comfort, stability, esteem, status) in a way that limits the beloved's own growth. If I put the ways my beloved meets my own needs above their own need to grow, am I loving them or am I using them? If my own needs don't factor in, am I failing to bring myself fully to the endeavor and is that fair to my beloved, who wants to love me?
Freedom does not mean that we allow ourselves to be disrespected just as poly isn't a blanket contract to abandon at will.
We need a map and at the same time recognize how much a map isn't the terrain. I dated someone who had super strong opinions about poly and how it should work, probably as a result from attending too many workshops on polyamory. His strong opinions weren't a problem when I figured out that leaving him was a great way of reconciling how much they didn't work for me. What I noticed when I went exploring is that there are some rare people who are truly capable of paying attention. This has kept me safe, and taught me that I hadn't been paying enough attention to myself.
Thank you for this post. You dig deep, and that is refreshing as it is rare. It also makes me wonder; have you had lovers who you feel have done as much or more work on themselves as you do on yourself?
Posted by: presentjoy | 12/29/2016 at 07:08 PM
I love this post so much. Thank you. There is a lot I identify with, although I do think that for me, bdsm and poly were kind of like a crash course in figuring myself out - decades of therapy condensed into a few years of throwing myself at the abyss. I discarded poly 13 years ago, when I met my current partner. Since he knew of my poly past, it's come up a few times, but we've always worked through it. For me, the costs simply outweigh the benefits. Once in awhile it sounds tempting, then I remember all the things that made it not work for me. Oh, and guess what? Jealousy wasn't one of them. One of my peeves is the line about how "poly takes work" as if only poly people are willing and able to do difficult emotional and relationship work. In my experience, it takes a lot more emotional work to make long term monogamy happy for both people, so fuck that particular poly holierthanthou bullshit.
As for the bdsm, I have a wonderful partner who didn't come to me that way, but has been supportive and great in figuring out what he can and can't do in that department. Answer: lots of super awesome bdsm that stops at the bedroom door, which for me is exactly, perfectly great. When I met him, my kinky friends were dubious. Most of those friendships have fallen away now that my sex life is a PART of my life, not the all-consuming focus that it felt like in the poly/bdsm community. I do miss some of those friends, but it became obvious that our commonalities ended at kink.
As someone who survived (barely) an abusive bdsm relationship, I know all too well how difficult it is to get out of that wilderness when everything you thought you knew about abuse was reframed as "being a good submissive", and when your needs in poly are completely disregarded, then you are painted as jealous. I commend you for having the courage to post something that needs to be said more often.
Posted by: Jane | 12/30/2016 at 11:48 AM
I have the oddest response to this post - I feel so ... PROUD of you, though we've never met and never will and I have absolutely no reason to feel pride in any of your choices or realizations. But this journey you're on is HARD. And ugly and beautiful and worth it. How fantastic to see someone navigating it with so much honesty and grace, even while showing us the bruises and broken bones earned along the way. Clearly, this road is pretty familiar to me and I've landed in a similar place - I only care about intimacy and loyalty and fidelity to whatever agreement is knowingly and consensually and lovingly made between/among partners. I don't "do poly right" most of the time either. and I definitely don't do monogamy right. But I've gotten very skilled at hearing my body, at last, and being able to say what works for me and walk away (eventually) from what doesn't. Still means I end up solo, but that's better than trapped, and it's pretty wonderful to realize I can always count on myself to show up on that white horse when needed. always.
Wherever your next step goes, I hope you know you've already laid down a path for so many more people than you can imagine just by this post, and the one last summer. Please keep making messes (read: CHOICES) and being brave enough to talk about them and then turning them into art. thank you.
Posted by: Pegeen | 01/02/2017 at 11:15 AM
I saw "map" and I have to share. Here's a map that I adore as I'm always looking for good vocabulary and characterizations to aid in communicating. http://www.obsidianfields.com/lj/nonmonogamy2.5.1.gif
Posted by: Ben P | 01/02/2017 at 08:07 PM
I think that in this post you are, as always, brave and honest. There are not many people who change their minds and are open about it, and that is what, for me, makes your writing so reliable and interesting, and you a person who knows their shit - I know I can trust your relationship and sex advice and your conclusions about sexuality, because you aren't afraid to review your past ideas. This is what makes you a real expert, and not yet another self-proclaimed guru.
I've never written a comment on your blog, though I've been following it for years. Your book really changed my love life for the better, from an abusive non-relationship to the great relationships I've had ever since. I think from the beginning you sent a strong message of self-acceptance and boundaries in your writing, even if you were struggling with it like you say in this post, or at least that's the way I interpreted it. I did realise, through reading your book, that I didn't need to have loads of sexual conquests to be liberated and a true feminist, that monogamy was actually nicer for me (though I've always though I might try non-monogamy myself), and that my personal brand or identity needed not to be, for example, like yours (which is beautiful, by the way), but could be hippier, flat-shooed and less social and still work :)
You are someone who has really helped, in the distance, to shape a little bit who I am, how I present myself to others and how I live my love life, so it makes me really happy to see you are discovering inside of yourself, these things that you already wrote about, that you already knew about in an intellectual level. And that you're not afraid even though this can be terrifying. Because you made me feel brave and capable and not afraid at a time when I had two choices: to change or to go down a road of abuse.
Sorry if my comment is a bit confusing, I don't know how to put everything into words. You're so right about what you're saying, I've also felt the pressure to have more sexual experiences, try new sexual practices and be exactly what others wanted me to be. I've always said I find it terrible that men find me being bisexual attractive, but if I'm honest, maybe I also secretly liked it and tried to make them know. I don't know why this happens even to those of us who think a lot about this shit, I guess we're not safe from the patriarchal society even if we reflect about it... I'm still struggling with all of this, but I'm learning to let go and not try to be someone else or have someone else's needs.
I didn't have it as hard in my childhood as you did, I can't even imagine what you went through, and I don't know you personally. I could tell you that you're strong and that you're figuring all of this out, but you already know and anonymous people on the internet can't and shouldn't try to help you with that. But what I wanted to let you know with this comment is that I admire you so much and that these things that you say now were implicit for me in all of your writing before this post. I'm glad you're putting them to use now and I hope you will be very happy with your love life in the future. I'm sure you will, you're on that path.
I want to send you lots of energy and appreciation, maybe some of it will reach you :)
Take care,
Moon
Posted by: Moon | 01/15/2017 at 04:43 PM
Very interesting and some things resonate deeply. Parts of my brain are very desociative too and loved ones pain and pleasure are sometimes felt more deeply than my own. I've learnt that this is a hurdle in my ability to offer support. A good caregiver filters out some of the pain their loved one feels other wise they can't provide a safe healing environment. If I get hurt by a loved one parts of me do want them to feel the pain I'm feeling but other parts know that will not help the healing process and know that many times pain I'm feeling has a lot to do with past abandonment being triggered by a specific action. As for poly it sounds like you've had your share of bad poly. Personally I think that when sex and love are not treated with artificial scarcity there is more of both to share and with good poly more of people's needs can be met so I hope you don't give up on the philosophy.
Posted by: Sarah | 01/16/2017 at 04:39 AM